Congratulations and thanks!

Here's our great clinic space in San Pedro Perulapan.  This huge auditorium space easily and comfortably held all our clinics and most of the waiting patients with plenty of room to spare.  We wish we could pack up the auditorium for next year, but ACOSAMA - the non-profit organization that kindly welcomed us into their space for the week - probably has some other uses for it.

Darren writes:
A very special to thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make the PazSalud medical mission in San Pedro Perulapan so successful.  The countless hours by the the US and Salvadoran volunteers paid off as we were able to see a record 1,647 patients in 4.5 days and deliver much needed care to an under-served population.  Congratulations to all and thank you to all the wonderful people we met along the way.

Mission Accomplished!

We can say, with some pride and a great deal of satisfaction, that we completed our General Medical Mission to San Pedro Perulapan on Valentine's Day, February 14th, after seeing 1,647 people, many of them in two or more clinics.  The week was full of memorable moments - Kathy Garcia enjoyed more than her usual quota of babies to cuddle:

Rosa Aguiar, our team member from Comasagua, El Salvador, signed up a record number of patients for cataract surgery - 81 (we wouldn't be able to handle that many cases, but the list typically shrinks between sign-up time and show-up time):

Ray Moore, Supply Chain Contracts Manager in his PeaceHealth life, took breaks from looking for optical prescriptions to delight children with a magic book that opened onto either blank pages or drawings, depending on....well, that part's the magic.  Ray's kneeling at the center of the photo. Sr. Andrea Nenzel, left, and optician Jackie Kersten, right, are enjoying the show:

Cecilia Jacobson, also part of our Optical Shop team, enjoyed the new look of one of her young clients:

 Dr. Adriana Linares, who mentors new resident physicians, found a possible future student in this little guy with his firm grip on her stethoscope:

The joyful moments continued during our weekend of sightseeing, shopping and relaxation.  The funniest came at the airport, at about 6 AM, when Sr. Amalia Camacho, aided by Dr. Charlotte Ransom, left, finally fulfilled her wish to eat Pollo Campero - for breakfast:

There are thousands more special moments to be shared with family and friends and colleagues in the coming weeks and months, moments from a memorable week.